Exiled National Resistance Movement (NRM) leader Miguna Miguna has announced he will be travelling back to Kenya from Canada on January 7, 2020.

The self-styled General’s last attempt in 2018 to return to the country of his birth was dramatically unsuccessful, with State security agents deployed at the JKIA to deport him.

Mr Miguna’s ill-treatment then also had much to do with the prevailing hostile political climate in which the powers-that-be considered him the troublemaker-in-chief.

With the March 9, 2018 truce between President Uhuru Kenyatta and his election rival, Mr Raila Odinga, having reduced the political temperatures in the country, the NRM General’s perceived threat levels have gone down as well.

CITIZENSHIP ROW

But Mr Miguna’s January return will still significantly test the progress the country has made on the democracy path, if any, since the last disputed election.

Mr Miguna has a court order reaffirming his right to Kenyan citizenship.

If the State insists on disrespecting the court order, it will be sending out the message that it’s not fully committed to the rule of law.

If Mr Miguna makes it through the JKIA doors in January, he might want to know what some of his former friends, colleagues and rivals have been up to while he was away. Here is a brief guide:

Raila in Canaan

As Mr Miguna will remember, the man, who campaigned on the platform of taking Kenyans to 'Canaan' and whom he swore in as the People’s President at Uhuru Park, made powerful friends in State House soon after.

He has denied having discussed power sharing while negotiating their truce with the President.

But the stream of high-profile guests to his Capitol Hill office has set tongues wagging about another seat of power emerging at that Nairobi address.

Kidero and Sonko reunited

The last time Mr Miguna was seen publicly in the company of these two was during a live TV debate involving candidates for the Nairobi governor’s seat at Daystar University.

Evans Kidero was the incumbent and Mike Sonko his closest challenger. Mr Miguna, an also-ran, had some very unflattering things to say about both Mr Sonko and Mr Kidero.

As fate would have it, the former governor and the current governor of Nairobi are both facing graft charges, their charge sheets are duplicates of Mr Miguna’s assertions at Daystar.

David Ndii flirting with Ruto

From his tweets, the former Nasa campaign consultant appears to be thinking up Kenya’s next great democracy project, including identifying an Obama-type revolutionary candidate to break up the stranglehold of the dynasties on Kenya’s power politics.

In one of his brainwaves, he thought William Ruto, the Deputy President, fits the bill.